


apastron

by vontsira



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, It’s like gen but also graha totally likes the wol, and some others in passing but its graha fic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19773145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vontsira/pseuds/vontsira
Summary: G’raha does not let himself fantasize about what his life would have been if he had stayed awake, stayed present. His destiny had always been and always would be here.But sometimes as he lays awake and stares at the burning map of stars in the night sky he cannot help but feel regret for a future that would never come to pass.(G'raha journeys through time and space to pen the final chapter in the stories of those he'd left behind, and to those he's come to save.)





	1. antecedent

**Author's Note:**

> goes crazy over an mmo*

[ I ]

When they wake him the world is dark. His limbs stick heavy to the bed he’s called home for time unknown, his eyes still weary with sleep. Whoever wakes him is polite enough to grab him by the forearm, gently pulling him upright. He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. Counts to three- then wills them open, once and for all.

The Crystal Tower is dim, even in its awakened state. A concerned pair of men, one Roegadyn and one Hyur stare at him with saucer-wide eyes. He stares back. The soft cotton sheets he’d become so acquainted with stretch taut under his fingers. His tail bristles.

The Hyur is the one to break the silence. He shakes his head as if he’s been struck, struck and snapped back into reality. “Ah!” The man exclaims, his shrill voice echoing off the otherwise silent halls. “I, ah, we didn’t think you’d actually wake up so- well, actually we weren’t necessarily sure you were even real- but, well, ah…” he trails off sheepishly.

An all too familiar silence permeates the Tower once more.

“Yer scaring ‘im, man.” The Roegadyn elbows the Hyur sharply and he yelps. “As my partner here was _trying_ to say. We’ve been trying to crack this fortress of a tower open for… Gods it's been a while, hasn’t it!” He laughs at his own words, his partner chuckling nervously in suit. “Well it nary matters how long we’ve been at it. Moreso the _why_. An’ so I ‘ave to ask… would you be one G’raha Tia?”

Then this was the future, then, G’raha Tia shuddered as the weight of those words sunk into him. He opens his mouth to respond but all that he can manage is a weak and far too embarrassing squawk, pursued by a fit of coughs that rattle him to his core.

The men shuffle around him. “Get ‘im some water!” More rustling. A metallic clang and clash, a yelp. His thoughts swirl and stick in his mind, tepid and oozing with mire, threatening to choke him and drag him under.

G’raha feels faint- so tired, impossibly tired, after a sleep so long and deep his name had seen fit to fade into myth. The cotton sheets between his fingers are soaked with sweat, G’raha notes, emptily. He quivers and heaves, stomach twisting into knots and head pulsing in agony all at once. The pain hits him like a tidal wave and G’raha sleeps once more.

[ II ]

It is well into his third moon in the future that Biggs and Jessie start to truly put together a plan. In that time G’raha has tried to acquaint himself with the world as it is now.

And what a world it has become- desolate and devoid, bleak and cruel. The star iself roils and rots from the inside out. A hunted animal with a wound that has been left to fester. Its people continue their crawl across her flank, countless insects, desperate and hungry, waiting for the day when she finally shudders out her last breath so they might feast on her carrion one last time.

It is not the future G’raha thought he would see. It is not the future any of them envisioned.

Those “them”, his trusted friends and companions, are long gone. In truth G’raha had known from the moment The Crystal Tower had shut its doors that he would not see his friends again. His story would close- but theirs would span on through time. And one day he would no doubt awaken to read those stories through tomes, through folk legends and ballads. 

(And in a sense they _are_ remembered. G’raha would be a fool to miss the smile that affixes itself to Biggs’ lips whenever he recounts the numerous tale of The Warrior of Light, or the reverence Jessie’s voice when he pours over the history of Garlond Ironworks for the second time that day.

But these stories are stories of heroes and legends, folktales and myths of those who might as well have been untouchable as the Gods themselves to those who spoke them. _I knew them,_ G’raha wants to shout, though he knows Biggs and Jessie are well aware of this. _They were people too. Not just heroes and geniuses._

Yet G’raha says none of this and resigns himself to keep the memories of his friends- Rammbroes’ thunderous snoring, Cid’s inability to function without caffeine. Nero's numerous eccentricities. The Warrior of Light’s veritable host of small animal pets that perched upon their shoulder- to himself. They are long gone after all.)

It’s the fact that his friends perished long before any of their lives had been truly lived that sits heavy in his stomach. The feeling claws its way into his bones and nestles itself a little home within his heart. A constant companion of grief he will never get to see through.

G’raha does not let himself fantasize about what his life would have been if he had stayed awake, stayed present. His destiny had always been and always would be here. 

But sometimes as he lays awake and stares at the burning map of stars in the night sky he cannot help but feel regret for a future that would never come to pass.

[ III ]

Within the season Biggs and Jessie’s “plan” is well under way, terrible as it is. But it is the only plan they have. So G’raha says nothing as Biggs and Jessie and all their Ironworks associates turn The Crystal Tower inside and out. Elegant decorations of filigree gold are interwoven with crude wiring. Polished marble floors are chipped under the weight of magitek drones, scurrying back and forth through once hallowed halls.

Though it is a terrible plan G’raha cannot refuse it.

(Biggs’ eyes cast low. Jessie’s hands balled into fists at his side.)

Time and space are being wrought in these very halls. With The Crystal Tower as his beacon G’raha will saddle the eons themselves. But not through his efforts alone, though the journey itself will be his to bear.

“G’raha!” Biggs calls and waves him down. G’raha has become something of a friend and a mentor to the man in the recent months, somehow, as it was by no effort of his own. Most of the Ironworks employees glance up to him with a type of admiration in their gaze that makes G’raha want to shrink away into nothingness. “Things are shapin’ up well. Shouldn’t be more than another month or two before we can give ‘er a spin.”

G’raha humms. “I was under the impression that this machine of yours was a one shot wonder.”

“You got me there!” Biggs laughs. “Still. I know I’ve said it ‘fore and I’ll probably say it again, but. Thank you. For all of this.”

“I’ve done nothing to warrant your thanks. You and your crew are the ones who’ve labored day and night to put this project together.” G’raha counters. 

Biggs glances to aforementioned crew and for a moment his smile falls. “Well, I ‘spose I ought to give them my thanks as well then. But without you- without your knowledge, your… unique insight on history, and Hells- without your connection to this Gods-forsaken tower none of this would have been anything more than a pipe dream passed down the generations.”

“But, this plan- this… your dream. I’m the one taking the journey but you’re the ones working so hard to make it happen and for-” he stutters, voice cracking, “and for what?” The tower would be a one way trip through time. “None of you will ever see any of the changes I… that I only just _might_ make! And even if I am successful there’s no way of… you wouldn’t know.”

Arms crossed, Biggs smiles at him steadily. “I know, my friend. Reckon there’s not a soul in Ironworks who doesn’t know that this mission is one we aren’ like to see the end of. But every single one of our forebears worked to bring us to this point. An’ even if they knew they wouldn’t live to see the end of this here tale they knew well enough to entrust the chapters they had written to us here and now.”

Biggs’ smile never wanes as he speaks. “An’ I reckon that even if we don’t see the conclusion to this story, the journey is well enough a reward in and of itself.”

A month and a half later G’raha watches the doors of The Crystal Tower shut himself off from the world he knows for the second time in his life. Biggs and Jessie and all of their compatriots wave him goodbye with smiles that can only be genuine. There will be no going back, no second chances. For better or worse he will be the lone author to the final chapter in their story, a tale of a time, a world and its peoples long forgotten to all but himself.


	2. après

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> graha tia fic... 2!

[ I, redux ]

The First- or Norvrandt, as he is told, by wary refugees that circle the base of his Tower- is a star hanging on by a thread. But by a thread it did hang, as did her people, adamant to not let that thread fray and snap. The peoples of Norvrandt dug their heels in and in doing so gave the star the weight it needed to keep on persevering. But willpower and well-wishers alone did not save a star, a fact that G’raha was all too familiar with.

But the peoples of Norvrandt seemed inclined to place their faith in him. A mysterious outsider arrived in a tower of pure crystal- like something out of a storybook. He kept his face hidden even in those early days. And as those days grew long and warped into months and then years G’raha knew the moments in time he sought would not be happening within his time, short as the lives of men were. 

G’raha did not come here with the weight of the world and the will of its peoples on his shoulders to just die, and so he searches for an answer to the age old riddle of life. 

His synthesis with the Crystal Tower goes smoother than he had expected. Which is to say G’raha had not lost his life on the spot, though he had doubled over and passed out from the pain. 

The changes to his body are unsettling. His flesh woven with crystal, yet flexible enough to mimic the bone and sinew it had replaced. Eating and sleeping become a luxury rather than a necessity. When a sickness rages through the refugee camp-turned-town G’raha is not among the afflicted. He tends to the sick children whose parents are fearful of contamination. The sickness passes with time and those children who had survived grow tall and have children of their own. 

Around them they have built up a city to rival any of the great City-states of The Source. And the larger the city, _his city_ , as some would have it becomes so does the mystery of its mysterious benefactor grow. Anyone who has seen his face and known his name all those years ago when G’raha had been a newcomer to Norvrandt were long gone. The citizens dub him several things throughout the years but the title that sticks is the Crystal Exarch.

Years fly by impossibly fast and G’raha Tia slips into the role of Crystal Exarch. When the first Scion ( _wrong, that’s the wrong one, you fool_ ) arrives dazed and inexplicably nude on his doorstep, demanding answers and names before he bothers to demand a change of clothes, the syllables if his name snare his tongue like brambles.

[ II, redux ]

The next summoning goes as well as the first. Thancred has already been on Norvrandt- and wandering- closing in on three years when G’raha manages to call upon the hero of The Source once more. Or so he thinks he has. All of his years of preparations and re-preparations fly out of the window once more.

Y’shtola and Urainger are useful allies in their own right. But they are not who he seeks- not who The First _needs_. Urianger fills the role of his trusted confidant- a man as accustomed to lying and secrecy as G’raha himself- while Y’shtola proves far less easy to convince of his trustworthiness. 

She is fed up with him by when the calendars mark the turn of the seasons. G’raha can do nothing to convince her to stay and so she goes, true to her word. 

G’raha returns to the drawing board two more Twelves-damned times (First, a little Elezen boy who speaks circles around him. Second, a little Elezen girl who bites as hard as she barks.) before he finally gets it right. A little off mark perhaps, but if anyone could handle themselves out in the wilds of Lakeland it would be _them_. 

They are not as he remembers them. G’raha watches them as they tour the Crystarium, converse with her citizens. Only the faintest trace of the foalish young adventurer dashing through the halls of The Crystal Tower remains. And the more he watches, the more G’raha comes to understand. Their adventures have tempered them into a different person, in all the ways his time as the Exarch has bent him into someone new. 

It is little wonder they fail to recognize him, cowl or not. He has known from the beginning that the name G’raha Tia will be but a footnote in history.

His place in the annals of history of fast approaching, G’raha knows. He has long gone over the steps of his final act with Urianger on dozens of occasions. With the time G’raha has left he plans to set his affairs in order, to leave the world a better place than how he leaves it. 

[ III, redux ]

G’raha is no stranger to pain. 

(He’d been overly zealous in his youth. Constantly getting into trouble, constantly letting his mind wander. The other students of the Studium had both loathed and envied him for his boldness- ever ready to speak his mind, to put theory into practice. Sharp as any of the honors students but just a bit too wild to ever have excelled alongside them.)

Being shot begets a special kind of agony. G’raha is newly and so intimately acquainted with the searing feeling of a bullet lodged in his abdomen. It’s not a pain he would wish upon anyone else, enemy or no. 

Every rattling breath he takes in this graveyard of a city is a constant reminder of his failure. 

“You look terrible, truly.” Emet-Selch is watching him, perched atop a towering marble bench. His head is cocked ever so slightly to the side, his lips curled into a pleasant smile.

G’raha clenches his teeth and wills himself upright. Slowly. “Through no help of- of your own.” He replies sharply. A sheen of sweat forms on his forehead. 

Emet-Selch makes a non-committal sort of noise, and leans himself back against the bench frame, slouching. “Garlean steel is made to be quite difficult to counter with aether of course. Not the most elegant of weapons, certainly, but efficient enough. Now I’m no trained chirurgeon, so I decided it best to just leave the bullet as it were.”

“Why,” G’raha pants. _Why save me. Why keep me alive, mend my wounds when you and your kind would have us all dead._ “I won’t help you.” _I’d rather die. I was ready._

Emet-Selch clasps his hands together and his smile wavers. “Oh, please. Do you truly think I’ve no heart? Well- then again, I did shoot you. But not fatally, and yes, here you are.” He pauses, and G’raha’s ears twitch, picking up on a thoughtful humm that rumbles in Emet-Selch’s throat. “Well. I suppose I should be forthcoming with you, seeing as you’re my guest of honor. I’ve done some digging into you and your little time-hopping powers. Impressive stuff, I will concede. But you and your ilk are limited in its applications, as you are in all things.” 

“I won’t help you,” G’raha breathes, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’d rath-”

“Yes, yes, you’d rather die. Very valiant of you and all, but why not hear me out?” Emet-Selch interjects, leaning closer. “With the scope of my knowledge and your powers both you and I could achieve our goals. A mutually beneficial business partnership, if you will. With the rejoining my goals would be complete- my kin restored and recreated. The star whole once more. But recreation and restoration are two _very_ different things you see. Long have I suffered through the thoughts of what life would be if I could just turn back time. A mere fantasy, nothing more. Until now.”

Emet-Selch’s familiar smirk melts off his face. His eyes are blazing. “You could send me back- with the knowledge of the future and how to avert the fall of our Star. Time and history unwritten, at our beck and call. Of course your end of the deal would be just so- any point in time, any peoples, are all yours to save. A little pocket of time for you and those you love that you may never wither as your ilk are so wont to do. I’ve seen how you look at our dearest Warrior of Light, Exarch. Would you pass up an eternity at their side?”

G’raha thinks. He thinks of the Warrior of Light, ever pushing forward, even on the precipice of breaking. He thinks of Biggs and Jessie, watching him spirit himself away in the culmination of their life's work and their forebears life’s work, leaving themselves to certain doom. Of all those who have fallen in his name and in the name of the Crystarium. He could save all of them. Keep each and every one of them hale and happy until time itself unravels.

(Lastly he thinks of Lyna. Lyna as a girl, still so much smaller than himself, huddled in some alleyway of the Crystarium. Sobbing. G’raha had happened upon her, took her hand in his and led the crying girl to the Ocular. 

He had made her tea, he remembers. And through her sobs he had pieced together a tragic and far too common tale. Her parents dead. Killed fighting to defend their home and their daughter. 

“I don’t know why they left me,” she sobs, shaking. “I want them back.”

G’raha knew not how to comfort her, and so he let her cry.

So few years later and Lyna herself dons the same uniform her parents met their end in. _Why_ , he wonders, watching her depart for her first patrol with baited breath.)

G’raha thinks he understands now. What it means to uphold a legacy, to forge on down a path carved by others. To leave it safe in the knowledge that another might one day continue on. 

Even if he turns back time neither he nor Emet-Selch will find what they are looking for. G’raha will never forget the sacrifices made for him to get here- but he will not let those sacrifices cloud the future. 

Emet-Selch watches him raptly. Waiting for an answer.

“The fate of the world- nay, worlds, lies in the future. The sacrifices of the past do not outweigh the lives of the living, or of those who may yet live. The future holds endless possibilities. What is gone is gone.” G’raha says at last, eyes falling shut. 

“Pity.” Emet-Selch says, his pretenses of charm melting away. “It would seem your dearest friend and their meddlesome cohort of abominations are close at hand.” The sound of Emet-Selch’s footsteps reverberate. “Well. I’ll be sure to fill you in on all the sordid details of their last moments soon enough. Then mayhaps you will be more inclined to cooperate. Pray excuse me, Exarch.” 

G’raha breathes in steadily. He lurches forward, willing himself upright to stand on trembling legs. _I want to be a part of that future,_ G’raha stumbles towards his staff. The cool metal pulses with aether under his touch.

[ IV ]

When they return to the Crystarium the chirurgeons remove the bullet from his torso with ease. Then they chide him as if he were a schoolboy with a scraped knee and order him onto a fortnights worth of bedrest.

G’raha doesn’t need to sleep, so instead he spends his “bedrest” practicing his calligraphy. He is sure there are authors and bards of all manner putting the tale of the Warrior of Darkness to song and paper much more eloquently than he could ever hope to right this moment. So instead G’raha writes about the small things, the secret things, the things that he and he alone has borne witness to. 

The Warrior oft comes to visit him during the afternoons these days. “It looks nice,” they comment, fingers brushing the tips of the page he’s currently inking. 

G’raha flushes. “‘Tis just basic calligraphy. I’m writing about the early days of the Crystarium. A history book if you will.” 

“Oh! I bet Morel will love that. I’m going to make him read it to me when you’re done, cover to cover.” 

“You- ah,” G’raha stammers. His tail twitches so anxiously he has half a mind to reach back and still it. “You can read them now, if you’d like. The ones I’ve completed.” 

The Warrior of Light shuffles in their seat. “Well. I’m sure it’s excellent and all but, hah, the thing is reading isn’t- well, to put it simply it isn’t my strong suit.”

“You can’t read?” G’raha stammers, incredulous. 

“Sheesh. Not all of us get a Sharlayan education, G’raha.” Even though their voice is light and teasing G’raha prickles with shame. 

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to- my words were…” G’raha trails off. An awkward silence blankets the room. “Would you be willing to learn?” 

The Warrior of Light tilts their head. “Meaning?”

“I’d be willing- no, not willing, I’d be honored to, ah, give you some tutelage on the basics of reading. When you have the time, of course.”

The Warrior of Light assures him they’ll be back tomorrow for their first official lesson. “Don’t forget about tomorrow, G’raha!” they call out to him later that evening as the wave him goodbye from the bottom of the stairs, silhouetted by the setting sun.

G’raha waves back and watches them go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [goes crazy after writing this] unbetad cuz i dont have a beta im a 1 pony circus. thank u for reading and comments and questions make me happy + will bless you with good loot rolls.

**Author's Note:**

> as i wrote this i realized emet selch and graha kind of foil one another im just too illiterate to put it into a proper theory


End file.
